“That’s heavy!” Isaac and Bikie exclaimed in a single voice. They were inspired by this news, Pascal was smiling too.
Pleased, the professor puffed out a cloud of cigar smoke. This was a familiar, but forgotten situation for him from his past when his students expressed enthusiasm. Link smoked a lot, sometimes not taking the cigar out of his mouth for days on end. The house already stank pretty badly. The cigar ash left marks on the floor, the sofas and even the computer keyboard.
“What’s the bad news, professor?”
“The fact that three of the four servers are unsuitable for our purposes, even theoretically. Of course, we could just try our luck the Russian style, without being sure, but a bunch of Frenchmen in the Moscow institution might look suspicious. Hong Kong is heavily guarded too and the staff there are all Chinese, no Europeans. So Russia and Asia are out. I’ve been in the Paris building from where we retrieved Pascal’s creativity, only once, before they installed the server. I’m sure we could take it over, but there’s no point. The facility is surrounded by forests and fields. The signal won’t reach the city, even with Pascal’s amplifier. There will be no one within reach to return the energy to, so we either have to gather a crowd of Veggies around the Paris storage server, which isn’t practical, or go to New York.”
“So what’s the bad news?”
“That I won’t be able to go through the US passport control unnoticed. And it is risky for Pascal to go without a cover story as well.”
“Then let’s split up. Pascal and you deal with the amplifier, and Isaac and I will explore the New York facility. And we’ll think about the border. How’s that?” Bikie suggested.
The professor nodded, agreeing.
“Hang on,” objected Isaac. “I want to tell you about my plan too. My suggestion is to go to the police.”
Bikie and Link gaped at Isaac in amazement.
“We don’t really need any plan,” Isaac went on. “We’ll tell the police everything. I thought about it and realized that we haven’t done anything wrong. On the contrary, everything was right. Let’s stop taking risks and carrying this burden. Of course, we won’t tell them all of the details. There’s no need to say where your house is, Link, so don’t worry about that. We can say that Pascal joined the experiment voluntarily, no one coerced him. He will confirm that. Wolanski’s role doesn’t have to be explained. So we worked for him, who cares about that?”
“Isaac, I don’t trust them,” Link said calmly. “We’ll present our proof, but even with my reputation on our side, there is a risk that the situation won’t develop the way you think it would.”
“And what if some villain has already hijacked COMA? But no one knows or realizes that?” Bikie said in support of the professor. So his rebellious spirit hadn’t disappeared after all. “Our plan is safer. That way we don’t risk running up against malevolence in UNICOMA or the police.”
“The Agency could react in a hostile way,” the professor agreed. They could start lying and say that transferring of OE did not take place, that we simply erased Pascal’s memory and that the energy was returned to him incorrectly. Even sue us for theft.”
“But not the police, why would they want to do that? And the police still have enough power to stop anyone at all, whether it’s terrorists or COMA.”
Pascal supported Isaac, affirming that, to his mind, his testimony and Link’s conclusions would be enough. Professor Link himself! The creator of the invention, whose opinion should be regarded as the most authoritative in the field! And if several more people were brought back from being Happies that would definitely be enough for the police to prohibit UNICOMA doing further downloading.
Bikie retorted with a macabre observation that Pascal would be turned into a “lab rat.”
To enhance the effect, he sang in a morbid voice:
“Happy, happy end,
All the Happies will have their Happy ending!”
Thus, opinions were divided, so Isaac had to make the final decision and accept the responsibility. He thought things through again, weighing up the pros and cons deciding in forming the Agency was definitely not a good idea. He recalled that even though children born to Veggies had zero creativity, they hadn’t stopped, but buried the problem under a mountain of endless tests and analyses.
And now they might not stop, but launch an endless search for errors in the Link’s method of back transfer of OE. Yet if that was true for UNICOMA, it was not for the police and, thank God, so far the authority rested with the police. On the other hand, there was some logic in what Bikie and Link were saying. The professor declared that he had not agreed to anything like that, that his freedom and even his life would be in danger, and if Isaac went to the police, he would leave immediately. Without the professor, their case would collapse, and keeping him here by force wouldn’t be a smart thing to do.
Big money was at stake, the contributions of Collective Mind were too innumerable, and the Agency’s influence too immense. Of course, the truth was on their side, but it had to be gotten across. Skillful counter-propaganda could easily distort all the facts.
And really, no one knows how the world actually works. Which people would turn out to be good, and which bad? Who could be trusted and who couldn’t?
Of course, Isaac was tempted to go to the police and tell it all because then all would be over, he could calmly take care of Vicky, and Michelle would be there. If they didn’t say anything now, thousands more people would download and turn into living corpses.
Intellectually Isaac had already accepted his friends’ reasons, but he wanted so badly to shrug this problem off his shoulders. The police were closing in on him, and if he told them everything, he would be a hero instead of a suspect!
“We take the professor’s plan.” Isaac’s voice was decisive again. “And we’ll get this done as quickly as possible.”
“Hoo-ray!” Bikie exclaimed and the professor sighed in relief.
Isaac and Bikie didn’t waste any time, and immediately started analyzing the information on the American facility. And there was a lot to go through. The facility was in a building beside Central Park that used to be the Guggenheim Museum.
“I have an idea…” Bikie began but stopped short.
“Then tell me,” Isaac urged. “You know, popcorn’s for chewing on, ideas are for telling.”
“The Americans are smart chaps. They make money on everything! They could have put the storage server in the UN headquarters, but no, they put it in a public place and now they make money on guided tours as well. And that gives us a definite chance. A lot of personnel work in the building and some are stationed there permanently, some visit from overseas. They don’t all have access to the underground central storage server, but I think there must be a few dozen: the director and his deputies, lab assistants, security men, technicians, cleaners, etc., etc. If you think about it, the list could be even longer. And what’s more, I think the security is not serious. More to deal with fanatics and vandals, so most of the activities take place at the entrances to the building.”
“Yes, look. The Agency branch used to be located at the intersection of First Avenue and 42nd Street, and they only moved to the former museum last year. And there haven’t been any serious attacks on COMA for at least four years.”
“There are the photos,” said Bikie, leaning back in his chair, pleased with himself. “It’s all out of the social networks. In some you have a great view of the central hall, the cloakroom, and the restrooms. The security at the door is serious, of course, but in the hall, basically there isn’t anyone.”
Bikie was incredibly good at his job. In fifteen minutes he dug up all the statistics for attempted attacks on the storage servers. Official data wasn’t too comprehensive, but he found a mass of information in the press and the social networks. In the past, the servers had been attacked regularly, and often by extremely well-prepared groups. But that was before. Now it was loners like Elvis, who were easily neutralized by standa
rd security measures. The “Monaco terrorist attack” had been the most notorious case that year.
“First let’s look at the ones who might need money. There must be a lot of cleaning ladies for a building like that,” Pascal suggested.
“You’re wrong there,” Bikie replied. “While you were a vegetable marrow, cleaning ladies were replaced by automatic robots. A cleaning lady is probably someone who controls the automated vacuum cleaners.”
Pascal could see that Bikie disliked him, even though they were on the same team. Pascal hadn’t actually done anything bad to him. Well, he phoned Eva once when he was drunk, but that was understandable, he’d lost two years of his life and the girl he loved. Isaac mostly ignored Bikie’s attacks. He knew that calling someone a vegetable, a pumpkin with brains or a sardine out of the tin was part of Bikie’s style, especially if that someone had once downloaded his OE.
“Come to think of it, Pascal’s idea is pretty good. Pascal, you’re rising to the occasion as always. More ideas than seeds in a watermelon,” Bikie droned.
“Bikie, why don’t you just dig up the names?” said Isaac. “I think the chances of finding ourselves an ally out of thirty or forty people, or at least, a gullible blockhead, are close to a hundred percent.”
“One blockhead is already an ally of ours, we can put a whole team together!” Bikie chortled
“Pascal, please take no notice of him,” Isaac forced out through his laughter. “Bikie got a tattoo on his head, the ink percolated into his brain and darkened his sense of humor.”
“The important thing here is to do the search for the blockhead right,” Bikie persisted. “We should listen to Pascal’s advice and do the opposite.”
“Bikie, before I was a professor, I was a lab assistant, and I earned the money for my experiments at poker. Leave this to me, I won’t get it wrong,” boasted Link, who had just walked up.
“Professor, I’m checking the stakes, show me your bluff,” Pascal joked.
Everyone laughed at last and the tension hovering in the air between Pascal and Bikie evaporated. Whether Bikie liked Pascal or not, he was a high-class technician and recognized Pascal as a talented inventor. He appreciated that the amplifier created by Isaac’s old friend was now the key element of the operation: he had been impressed by the way that Pascal and Link discussed reconfiguring the device to enable OE transfer over long distances. So now it turned out that the rebirth of the biker movement and the reanimation of the good old, uniquely designed Harley-Davidson were in Pascal’s hands. And nothing infuriated Bikie more than picturing the shops of the future, where they sold almost identical, averaged-out Ducatis and Harleys. Bikie envisaged the difference in the future as existing only in the emblems, and for some reason the Ducati’s was white and the Harley’s was red. Or maybe these companies wouldn’t exist anymore and there’ll be just one, combined. Things were already heading that way.
“Actually, it would be cool to break into the New York branch,” Bike declared pensively. “America is the motherland of rock’n’roll. Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly! I’d like to take a look at it. But what I love most about America is Elvis, Harleys and the know-how for making money!”
“We’ll do it,” said Isaac, slapping his friend on the shoulder. “You can be sure of that. It is the only option. Dig up as much useful information as you can. I think you can even find a plan of the building. After all, it used to be a museum.”
Isaac’s mobile phone started chirping. A text had arrived.
“Yes! From Michelle!” Isaac exclaimed delightedly and read the text avidly. It was very brief and rather strange.
“The Monte Carlo Bay Hotel in 30 minutes. Dress code white. If you’re one second late, I’ll leave.”
“Who’s got white trousers,” Isaac shouted. He had a white short, but no white trousers.
“Are you joking?” Bikie chuckled.
“I have,” Pascal responded. “I found some pretty good outfits at my place.”
“Pascal, please, let’s dash!”
“Where to?”
“To your place, of course! For the trousers!” Isaac commanded. “Sorry guys, but our conversation has to wait a while! See you this evening!”
Chapter six
Twenty-eight minutes after Michelle texted, Isaac screeched to a halt at the hotel. He was wearing a white shirt, white pants with the bottoms rolled up slightly and light-colored shoes. Pascal’s pants were a little too long and baggy for him so that they slipped down slightly, but with the belt tightened up they were basically okay. The shoes fitted him perfectly. The ex-Veggie’s wardrobe offered up about a dozen pairs of different-colored pants and half a dozen pairs of shoes.
He did not see Michelle by the hotel. And she has not shown up two, five, and even ten minutes later. Isaac was getting nervous. He texted her: “Hi! I’m here” – but got no answer. He reread her message again and again. Everything was right. It was from Michelle. The Monte Carlo Bay, there it was. There couldn’t be any mistake. “Maybe her text got delayed,” Isaac thought anxiously. “Maybe it wasn’t even from today? Maybe it’s just a nasty trick?” Theories flashed through his love-struck mind with ferocious speed. Some of them frightened him, others gave him hope.
After twenty minutes Michelle finally emerged from the hotel. She was dressed all in white too: a short, semi-transparent frock, white Roman sandals with straps that wound round her legs from the ankles almost up to the knees and two large pearl earrings. Everyone turned to look at her, both men and women.
Stopping two steps short of Isaac, she spoke to the parking attendant: “Park his scooter, please. And I need my car.” Then she turned to Isaac. “Well done. You can do it when you want to. I saw that you arrived in time. I was finishing my coffee in the lobby.”
Isaac turned a bit sulky, imagining her examining him indolently through the dark glass of the lobby in his nervous, emotional state, twisting his head in all directions. To anyone watching, he looked rather funny and stupid. But he did not reply or show his hurt feelings. He waited to see what was coming next.
“Don’t be offended. You were so amusing and terribly charming.” Michelle cast an eye over his outfit. “I see you didn’t have time to buy flowers? Or you think the ones you left with the concierge will be just enough?”
Isaac could not help blushing. He should have guessed! What a fool! He could not really have done it in time, but she had a point. He blundered again, dammit! Even one simple rose would do.
The parking attendant brought up a silvery Jaguar Silverstone. The classy old-time convertible was in an ideal condition. Retro cars like that are quite usual in Monaco, although in other places you hardly ever come across them.
“Will you drive?”
“Yes, of course,” Isaac answered warily, that car was worth a fortune. “But where are we going?”
“To Saint Tropez.”
Isaac got in the driving seat without asking any more questions. Not about where exactly they were going, or what kind of white party this was, or when they were supposed to come back. The important thing was that Michelle had forgiven him, or at least given him a chance to put things right. What was really important was that she was finally with him, and he would figure out the rest later somehow.
They arrived at Club 55 in San Tropez. It was a fancy party, with people in white dancing, drinking cocktails, and champagne, running to the sea now and again to take a dip. A totally awesome DJ fired out hit after hit.
Isaac took Michelle out to stroll along the beach in the dark. The long, sandy arc ran off into the night as if it would never end. Along the shoreline little white craft and beautiful motorboats bobbed about on the water and a bit further luxurious yachts were riding at anchor. Among them, Isaac recognized the black and white beauty “Michelle.”
The owner of this opulent floating home had thawed out and wasn’t angry anymore. She radiated affection and warmth. When she thanked Isaac for his beautiful poem, he decided to tell her everything.
From beginning to end. Starting with how he almost became a Happy, and ending with stealing back Pascal’s creativity.
Michelle listened attentively, not believing her ears, occasionally asking a clarifying question. As he spoke, Isaac sensed how he was gradually transforming in her eyes from an ordinary, quite attractive, maybe somewhat mysterious guy into a serious, ambitious man who was risking his freedom for an important goal. She was very intelligent and Isaac enjoyed the conversation. By telling her everything, he took a tremendous weight off his shoulders: now that nothing was being held back any longer, he was not afraid of losing his girlfriend because of yet another unplanned emergency.
“You know, Isaac, you’re turning out to be a really cool guy” Michelle’s admiration was genuine. “Somehow I never expected this kind of thing could really happen. That anyone was capable of this sort of thing.”
“Oh come on,” he replied, embarrassed. “This is a team project. Everyone supports each other. I couldn’t come that time because my childhood friend was quite heartbroken. He had lost the girl for whose sake he became a Veggie.”
“Yeah, I can imagine. And what are you going to do next?”
Although Isaac has presented everything as the doings of the team, Michelle sensed that he was the leader and the linchpin of the entire group. Isaac could see that, and his self-confidence was growing.
“At first, we wanted to tell the police everything but we decided not to risk it and to hack into one of the servers. So next up is America, New York. So far it’s not practical to get to the servers in the other branches. How and when isn’t clear yet. There’s no hurry, the most important thing is to prepare properly. Now that we have Pascal’s money, everything has become much simpler. And then Pascal’s waking up, his reaction… Now I know I’m doing the right thing. While we were rushing to fetch the white pants, we almost crashed at a turn and you know what? He shouted “oops, fuck!” and then he smiled. I mean, really smiled.”
Collective Mind Page 27